I'd like to propose an analogy to represent the relationship between God, Us, the Bible and the World. God would be in charge, and the source and producer of information, and the majority of us would be his potential customer, subscriber or consumer. We would have a value to him and lets assign the value the number 1. So if one of us 'subscribes' to Gods information, then he correspondingly gets to add that to his return on investment.

God Continues To Operate In The Red After 4000 Years.God is and has been working at a loss since he supposedly made himself known to Abraham. He continues to lose his investment. This year alone potentially AT LEAST 4.5 billion people are going to hell, some of them will be unborn fetuses, some of them will be Muslim Children that don't care anything about differences between religions and politics, and unless their interpretation is correct, some of them will consider themselves Christians. Most of them simply don't find Biblical Information to be believable, in the same way they simply don't find other information to be believable.

World Population: 6,790,062,216 (July 2009 est.), CIA World Fact Book [1]Christians make up only 1/3 of the world [2] (2,263,354,072 people), and even then they are divided about who the true Christians are, so True Christians make up less than 33% of the world. The cause of divisions between the Christians is the interpretation of the text. If the text were of high enough quality, no interpretation would be needed. It would accurately reflect real world states and the Quality of Knowledge would be high and therefore the outcomes from the use of Biblical Information would improve. There would be fewer denominations, and more Christians. Gods return on investment would improve.

Quality Information and KnowledgeCivilizations are advanced by taking advantage of Quality Information and Knowledge. The machine age and the industrial revolution translated, captured and reproduced with machines the accumulated knowledge of artisans which standardized and sped up production of Goods. The increased productivity and efficiency gave companies competitive advantages. Quality Knowledge was derived from Quality Information and that Quality Information was intrinsically useful.

The Computer revolution and the Information Age transformed how information is captured, stored, distributed and reproduced. It has torn down the traditional boundaries of accessible information and put information on demand at peoples fingertips. It has increased communication and fostered collaboration and created a Global Community of people that produce, provide, maintain and consume information. To ensure quality information, the principles of manufacturing are adapted to guide information production. Quality Information is information that has been treated with some care and control to ensure its accuracy and usefulness. To ensure Information Quality, Information must be treated like a product not a byproduct. Capturing real world states as accurately as possible and as timely as possible using DUE CARE and DILIGENCE is one way to do that. Companies that treat information as a product have a competitive advantage. Quality Knowledge is derived from Quality Information and that Quality Information is useful.

Since the formulation of the principle of Falsifiability and its endorsement by Karl Popper, Science acquired scope and definition. Since that time, co-opting the computer revolution and accessible information, science has also enjoyed a revolution of a sort. Using sound principles and Quality Information, science is a method for creating Quality Knowledge and that information has proven useful. The past fifty years have arguably been the most fruitful in creating useful Quality Information and Knowledge.

Two propositions follow from this. To increase successful outcomes, 1. Organizations must create a reservoir of Quality Information2. Organizations must use that information to create a reservoir of Quality Knowledge.

Create Knowledge with Quality informationSupposedly God wants to produce Christians, and the bible was created to aid in producing Christians. But the Bible was not created using principles of Information Quality even up to the standards of common inventory, household finance, or tax keeping of the time. The fact that accurate records are important has been understood since merchants started trading. However, scripture didn't use those simple record keeping principles about accuracy. Obviously, The Bibles accuracy and clarity was not of primary importance and the limited and splintered success of Christianity is what you'd expect and typical of organizations that create their information similarly.

Make an Inventory of What You Know In Real TimeCapturing the information about God and Salvation was not given the same importance as God and Salvation or even equivalent importance that a merchant has for his inventory, or even a household shopping list. The representation of God and Salvation in the medium of language is as important as God and Salvation itself, because the medium is supposed to represent it. If the medium doesn't represent its object accurately, then there is no accurate representation of the object to be understood. Therefore the real world states of God and Salvation are not represented anywhere for human understanding. Similar to the inventory, if records don't accurately reflect the real world state of an inventory, then the state of the inventory is unknown. It is demonstrably an open question.

It should be self-evident that the INACCURATE production of information directly NEGATIVELY impacts the PURPOSE for the production of that information. For example, if I go to a biology lecture and I don't record it or take notes, there is not much point in going. If I don't capture the information as it occurs, then I won't be able to accurately recreate it later on the exam. My score on the exam depends on how well I record that information and am able to review it before the exam. If I were to use someone else's notes, then I'm lucky if they've "taken good notes" and I'm lucky if I don't have to INTERPRET them or look to the book for interpretation due to missing information, inconsistent representation or ambiguity. If the information is treated as a product, and DUE CARE and DILIGENCE is used to ensure that it is captured accurately in real time, then it will be of higher quality than if it is treated as a byproduct and captured after the fact from memory. The Quality of that information directly impacts the quality of Knowledge that is derived from it, and this principle is put into practice and used every second of every day and is measured periodically by such things as tests in school.

Where is Jesus' Diary? Examples of Treating Information As A ProductAt the time of Christ, the Roman Centurion, in charge of one hundred troops kept a daily log book and passed that information up to his commander and that information made its way up the chain of command to be used in logistics and decision making[3].

OptometristWhen I go to the Optometrist, I do a few tasks, and the optometrist records some values on a piece of paper. Those values represent the real world state of my lenses. Any interpretation by the manufacturer of that prescription will lead to increased risk of inaccurate production of the lenses.

Airline SafetySimilarly in the airline industry, inspecting and recording the states and results of maintenance is treated as a representation of the state of the aircraft itself. If the records show that aspects of the airplane are out of tolerance, the airplane is taken out of commission.

Medical RecordsIn the medical field, the record that represents the health of the patient must necessarily be as accurate as possible because it is used to make decisions on the welfare of the patient.

Copying a Song From A CDWhen you want to make a copy of a song off of a CD you have many options about the sampling rate. The Sample rate is how often the computer records the state of the song in realtime. The more often the the computer samples the song, the higher the quality of the copy, and you can hear the difference. It is a perceptible demonstration of Information Quality principles.

In each of these cases information is treated as a product. The person who gathers the information acts in the role of the information provider. In the case where the information is inconsistent, ambiguous or missing, a reassessment is necessary before any sound decisions or conclusions can be made. The Quality of that Information directly impacts the Quality of Knowledge derived from that information which directly leads to measurable outcomes.

Information Quality is Quantifiable and Measurable. High Quality Information has several characteristics that distinguish it from lower quality information. Biblical Information has few of these characteristics. For example, even Christians, the consumers of information in the bible, are divided about what is accurate, and what is metaphor and this is the underlying reason for the different denominations within Christianity.

Its not a "representation of the body of Christ", its the result of Information that has a low Interpretability score.

Therefore, God continues to operate in the red after 4000 years, not because human beings reject him, but because they simply don't get it.

Because the Information Providers simply and demonstrably didn't do a good job.

List of Information Quality Dimensions And Their Categories That Are Used To Derive Metrics

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comments:

I am just completing reading the apologetic “Re-inventing Jesus” by Komoszewski, Sawyer & Wallace (so you don’t have to). The book is full of tendentious statements but what follows stands out to illustrate Lee's thesis.

They write:

”Likewise the Old Testament, especially the Greek translation known as the Septuagint(LXX), hinted at the possibility of the Virgin Birth. What is significant here is that Isaiah 7:14 is quoted by Matthew in the sense that Mary was still a virgin when she conceived. The LXX, which was produced before the birth of Jesus,9 clearly spoke of the virgin. The idea of a virgin birth did not in any way have to derive from pagan religions. New Testament writers already saw it in the Old Testament. And as we noted earlier, the Judaism of Palestine in the first century A.I), was virtually untouched by pagan influences. Thus there is absolutely no reason to suspect that Matthew got this idea from pagan sources.

Some have argued that the Virgin Birth is a later mythical addition since it is mentioned only in two Gospels and is not spoken of by any other New Testament authors. Over a century ago one biblical scholar answered this objection with a very practical observation: If the Virgin Birth was common knowledge among the apostolic community the New Testament authors "would have abstained from mentioning it for prudential reasons, lest they should expose the mother of our Lord to scandal during her lifetime—such scandals did in fact arise as soon as the virgin birth was declared." Hence the apostles may have kept silent concerning the doctrine until after the death of Mary."

The question of the Virgin Birth in Matthew becomes even more acute when we remember that first-century Judaism was radically monotheistic and abhorred anything that smacked of paganism. It is inconceivable that a Jew would incorporate any pagan mythological concept into his account, especially a concept that would compromise YHVVH's utter transcendence and holiness.”

So, angels, visitations, manifestations, new stars, wise men from the east, child massacres, flights into Eygpt are all hidden by the apostles for 60+ years to prevent Mary’s reputation being sullied by scandal. In the meantime, we are told that the apostles went out into the world to preach even, so we are told, at risk of their lives. How did they know that they would outlive Mary and thus allow the truth to become known and at long last be committed to writing?

Mary must have been born around 15 B.C. and thus would have been over 70 when Paul was still writing (but not about the virgin birth or that he had even heard of Mary) and even older when “Mark” wrote his Gospel (still no word). And yet not one word is written after her death of Mary, the blessed and holy Mother of God, in her dotage.

And who told the disciples of these things in the first place? Jesus’ brother clearly knew nothing of it since he was a doubter. Did Jesus know? If so, what was his reaction when his parents told him about it? “Gosh, Lor’, Lummy, Crikey!”. And who told the disciples? Was it Mary, but only after the resurrection? There is no indication from the Gospels that any of them were aware of such a claim either before or after the resurrection. The truth of the matter is that this is not at all surprising as that particular Christology clearly had not yet been invented. The alleged suppression of the history of Jesus’ birth was not out of respect for Mary whilst she was alive but because the story was a later concoction.

What quality does the information in Matthew and Luke carry on the virgin birth? Two very different and conflicting versions and yet a story whose truth has to be absolute. If there was no virgin birth then there was no man born free of sin and therefore there was no Son of God. But all of this information was hidden under the proverbial bushel until its only real witness had died. How convenient.

I say that the Information Quality of the doctrine of the virgin birth is zero.

I understand sometime how it can be frustrating talking to Believers when doctrinally we all don't see things the same way. So please be patient. But let me lay out a different scenario, based on very few verses of Scripture.

Because God will judge fairly (Rom. 2:14-16) And Jesus' blood is good enough to cover the sins of the whole world, (1 John 2:2) many of us Christians believe in an age of accountability concept. (2 Sam. 12:21-23) We also believe that would encompass those born with mental retardation, those born with mental illnesses or those stillborn or even miscarriages and aborted babies.

I'd even suggest that "the guy in the isolated tribe that has never heard of Jesus" also can be saved by the Holy Spirit, he doesn't need a missionary to come and "save" him. If you take Ecc. 3:11"God has set eternity in the hearts of men..." and combine that with Rom. 2:6-7 "God will judge each person on what they have done..." and if they honored the God of creation' then who is any one to say he's going to Hell, not our call.

The people who should worry about Hell are those mentioned in Is. 13:11. But I wouldn't suggest I know who they are? I only know where I'm at.

I think we all understand your level of faith--and your ability to quote Bible passages is a great testament to that.

The problem is simply that the Bible has no more authority in an atheists world than "Dianetics," by L Ron Hubbard, the "Book of Mormon," the "Bhagavad Gita," or the Kuran.

If someone could make a case for the truth of their religion based on passages from these texts would you, at all, find it convincing?

If not, do you think atheists should be convinced whatsoever based on your recitations of a historically important, but ultimately mostly fictional work? Of course, not.

I think YOU believe the Bible can be shown to be historically accurate and reliable. I understand that, no need to go over that. But Mormons, Muslims, and Hindus all believe the same exact thing.

If you can provide sufficient compelling evidence, TO ATHEISTS, that the Bible is accurate and reliable in all it's major faith claims, then your bible quotes have meaning. Other than that, you have to understand how we (or maybe just I) see it as sort of chest-thumping, "Look how many quotes I know--you must believe me now!"

I know lots of quotes from Monty Python movies--ultimately it won't mean a hill of beans, but I guess it's fun in the meantime for other people who "get" Monty Python.

The logic of your argument seems to take us to the position that if God had not decided to come down to earth in the form of Jesus then none of us would be assigned to hell for eternity. At least, none of us who were not guilty (or not tooooo guilty) of the sins set out in Is 13:11.

Is that what you are saying?

All have sinned. All continue to sin - especially Christians - so the only difference between all of us sinners is that the gullible are excused their sin even though they know sin is wrong but continue to practice it.

It seems a little unfair that the less impressionable should spend eternity in the hell of your imagination.

*** True Story ***

Proud obnoxious Christian (Holding - for it is he) to pigmy somewhere a long way back from the Throne of Heaven:

"Hey pigmy, by what exegesis did you worm your way in here?"

Pigmy: "Because I was not proud and obnoxious like you"

Proud obnoxious Christian: "Did you not hear of Christ while on earth"

Pigmy: "No - who he?"

An eternity of evangelising follows. Then:

Proud obnoxious Christian: "Would you have believed on Jesus had an American fundamentalist Baptist missionary shown up in your village and told you what I have just told you?"

Pigmy: "F*** ***. I may have had a small braincase but I wasn't thick."

Proud obnoxious Christian: "Then you shouldn't be here. I'll have a word with God and tell him to kick you out."

Pigmy quickly slips away between the legs of the saints until he is out of sight and heads off to have a word with Mother Teresa, a distant relative.

Did you know that God is in the business of producing quality products through the blood of the lamb, the Church (Ephesians 5:27)?

Yes, He does, and it does not matter to Him whether the Church are few or not, what matters is quality christians. I personally think that God is operating in the principles of the survival of the fittest, only that this time the fittest will be represented in the Kingdom of God , with Christ as the King and Christians as Princes ruling over the entirely new universe and the fittest will be the one who have fought and won the fierce battle of Faith.

I, too, like feeno believe in the universal redemption of all people from Adam to the last one, by Jesus. I do not have good information biblically about what will constitute "hellish" people although I strongly trust there is hell. I theorize hell is something like the third world countries in the Kingdom of God, therefore I dont trust there is such a thing as fire.

Hi Feeno,- Where did Paul get his information from?- Who or what corroborates it? - Why do you trust Paul?- Did adam exist?Paul thought so, so much so that he bet the farm on it.

- Who wrote 1 John? - Who wrote 2 Samuel?- Who wrote Ecclesiastes?- Who wrote Isaiah?- Who wrote John?- How do you know?- Where did the author get his information?- What are the authors credentials?- Was the author in a position to know?- If he was not in a position to know, was his source in a position to know?- Is the information first hand, second hand, third hand, etc?- Who or what corroborates it?- How many iterations did it go through before it got recorded?- What are the differences in any pre-existing versions?- How do you verify any of it?- How and where does it fit with established knowledge? Does it contradict any established knowledge? - On what grounds does it over-ride any pre-existing knowledge?

All these questions are open.Therefore, so is the information, Therefore, to make conclusions from it is unsound.So you can't say you really know anything regarding this information.

Seriously, God needs to get in the 21th century here with his communications. No more angels appearing, or dreams, or Jesus showing up on a piece of toast or a dog's butt.

God, get yourself a computer, setup an email account, start a YouTube Channel, get on Facebook and start Twittering. I mean really, the only being in the universe where Twittering would actually be useful would be you. Example: "Psst, people of Indonesia! Tsunami headed your way in a couple of weeks. Might wanna get out now."

Where is Jesus's body? No,no; not the church. Not the metaphorical body. It is, clearly of a different substance (not theological substance) than the Father or Holy Spirit. Jesus has a physical body, while the others are entirely spiritual, or non-physical. Jesus's body would even be different from that of angels. The only resurrected one until the Apocalypse. Where is this unique bit of matter?

Mitochondrial DNA evidence establishes that humans descended from one woman in a single location and Y chromosomal evidence confirms that humanity descended from one man from the same location. So, Adam did exist.

Mitochondrial Eve was not Eve the biblical first woman but merely a bottleneck, a woman whose female offspring survived when others didn't. She was just one woman with many ancestors. And she lived far earlier than 4004 BC.

Primordial Adam and Mitochondrial Eve were not even alive at the same time. So where did Cain & Abel come from?

You provide lots of good references but clearly you haven't bothered to read any of them. Go away and come back when you have read them.

Geneticists have calculated the date for the first Y-chromosomal man between 42,000 to 60,000 years ago. For the first mtDNA woman, the date reflects a much wider error bar, 170,000 plus or minus 50,000 years ago. This mtDNA date assumes universal homoplasmy. However, studies show that 10 to 20 percent of the human population possess two sets of mtDNA, and nearly 1 percent has three sets.

Calculations based on these new findings place the date for the first mtDNA woman closer to 50,000 years ago, in line with the Y-chromosome date. It also corrosponds with the biblical date for Adam and Eve's creation based on reasonable calibration of the Genesis geneologies.

Now you want to inject doubt in christians that even Adam and Eve are figments? Yeah they may be figments but for christians we have already crossed that: We go even believing in God whom we have never seen. At least Adam and Eve were supposedly men like us and they are now dead, so you see it is not a big deal to trust that these two people existed.

We believe in the bible for two primary reason. First, from the beginning it predicted about God becoming man through various prophets like Samwel, Isaiah, Exekiel or Daniel, which came to be true, that the 12 Apostles testifies about it and Paul explain the meaning of it more unaequovically about it, in a larger context of the mission. Secondly, it offers some hope, that possibly this life is not what there is. No matter how life is so challenging and heart breaking we still have hope that even if we lose everything in this life, we will still see life, even more glorious one than the previous. Those are good news. They may not be true, but we as human beings, are just like little children who want a feel good factor, and we get it there in the message of Jesus Christ. Atheists are not little children they are bigger than that, and they'll solve their problems through free thinking and science.

Robin,1. what you are saying is not the consensus of experts in the field.

2. what you are saying is not the consensus of christians.

3. What you are saying is partially correct but you are leaving out that it is correct in the context of it being a population and not one individual.

So now you have several problems to reconcile with Genesis and established knowledge.

your adam and eve1. were part of a population.

2. exceed biblical timelines

3. have a son that went out and built a city, but cities didn't start popping up until around 10,000 bc when the population was between 1 - 10 million, so that would have made him around 40,000 years old.

4. your adam and eve coexisted with Neanderthals.

5. your adam and eve, unless they were part of a population of 50 or more, or you want to play your perpetual miracle card, would have suffered from lack of genetic diversity creating a problem of a "founder effect".

Edson,They may not be true, but we as human beings, are just like little children who want a feel good factor, and we get it there in the message of Jesus Christ. Atheists are not little children they are bigger than that, and they'll solve their problems through free thinking and science.

That is the main difference between christians and atheists.so your refutation is that you don't care if its true as long as it makes you feel good?

you can go a lot further in coming up with long range solutions to problems if you worry about whether you data are reliable or not. That gives me a warm fuzzy knowing that my paycheck keeps coming in by providing solutions which include telling people things they don't want to hear but can be verified and are consistent with established knowledge and ultimately contribute to a high rate of successful outcomes.

as a general principle, getting past the emotion, facing up to reality and dealing with it produces more successful outcomes.

another general principle is that successful outcomes include a feel good factor as well.

Did you notice also the reason why I trust on the Old Testament? It made promise of the God visiting the earth. For the very same reason I trust the New Testament that He will do it the second time.He didn't let people down on the first instance and probably He wont do it the second time.

Yes I dont care if they'll happen or not, I just trust. By the way were are talking about a very serious matter here. The matter of life and death. I have learnt to trust God in very little things like health, finance, familly and as He doesn't let me down on these little matters, gradually I have learnt to trust Him on matters related to life and death (the after death). It may get complicated when a christian is passing through hard times and the challenges may shake the faith of the one but as for me it is much easier to trust in God when things are going so well (wink)!

3. have a son that went out and built a city, but cities didn't start popping up until around 10,000 bc when the population was between 1 - 10 million, so that would have made him around 40,000 years old.

Maybe they haven't found the city

4. your adam and eve coexisted with Neanderthals.

So.

5. your adam and eve, unless they were part of a population of 50 or more, or you want to play your perpetual miracle card, would have suffered from lack of genetic diversity creating a problem of a "founder effect".

Robin,Besides our knowledge is incomplete.you said it I didn't. You should do the honorable thing and admit that your conclusions are not sound because the bible is deficient in at least the following IQ dimensions

Of course there are different interpretations. I was just telling you the one I hold to. The fact is that you can't pin down one particular view on the issue and since you can't pin down one view then you can't say it's false. There's more than one way of looking at it.

Hi Robin,The fact is that you can't pin down one particular view on the issue and since you can't pin down one view then you can't say it's false.right, you should just reserve any judgments or any conclusions until you have better information, and lower the score in the appropriate IDQ Dimensions.

Information about Jesus was correctly and accurately disseminated to the jews the problem lies to being rejected. Still not all rejected him so it seem some jewish people had a different understanding of the OT. See the problem is not representational, the problem is about our own interpretability. And this depends on what is going on our minds at the present. To elaborate, jews at large expected a messianic figure in the literal sense of the word who will fight against opression by Roman rulers. But Jesus came humbly prefered to take another route of fighting the oppresion. He wanted jews to realize that they have erred for all the cause of oppression was due to not keeping the laws of Moses (most importantly to love your God with all your soul). Of course he knew that they will reject him so that another prophecy be fulfilled: Isaiah 53.

Now you'll ask me is God playing cat mouse games so his prophecies be fullfilled? Of course not. I believe God didn't intefere in whatsoever in affecting how jews realized Jesus. They wanted a superman messianic figure and God was not willing to grant that. Why do you think some jews realized Jesus to be the messiah? It is because they were willing to be humble and as a result God fully revealed Jesus unto them.

Another instance is today scenarios. Some people reject Jesus today because their minds tell them they dont need him. For those who havent heard Jesus that is entirely new scenario. And God is absolutely just than any of you think.

edson,Information about Jesus was correctly and accurately disseminated to the jews the problem lies to being rejected.Presuming the text to be somewhat accurate....

hogwash, if the text had clearly stated what the messiah was supposed to be, they could have seen that he met the criteria and they would not have rejected him.

but, as I said, this is based on presuming the accurate representation of the Jewish reaction in the text, of which none of it was recorded in real time, and we don't know the authors, or the source or if any of them were in a position to know.

In the story, they Rejected Jesus because he didn't fit what they were taught to expect and no body corrected the ahead of time. They were correctly rejecting what they thought was an imposter. They were doing what they thought was the right thing.

The text did not accurately capture the real world state.

Of course he knew that they will reject him so that another prophecy be fulfilled: Isaiah 53.but you say they were diliberately mislead, which would explain why the text was so uninterpretable.

Face it, as long as the instructions are incomprehensible, people are not going to understand it, and they can't be blamed for that.

That is an obvious principle that your are resisting applying to your religion.

and this is so ironic because we are talking about a description of what the outcome is of poor quality text, in poor quality text.

Robin,If your talking about this one particular issue then I would have to agree that we should suspend judgement.This one particular issue is just a marker on the road. I'm really preparing the way for my article on shredding romans 5, which I started over a year ago and sits in my googledocs waiting for the right place in the series.heres the link that presents all of them.

"...as long as the instructions are incomprehensible, people are not going to understand it, and they can't be blamed for that."

Yeah! I agree with you on that one. I'm sure God has this also in consideration. To be rational, God is supposed to be absolutely just and I am convinced God is not going to hold someone responsible for something he didn't understand.

At the same time, as I said in my earlier post, God is in the bussiness of findng the best people, the fittest, who will represent Him in the Kingdom. He has his own set of criteria of getting these sort of people. Under the same circumstances he will choose you and he'll leave me out. At the end of the day I'll still say that God is just.

There are so many examples of this. In America, there are christians and atheists, everywhere you'll get christians and non christians. So it seems in the Kingdom of God, God will be represented by people from all races and all nations.

Theoretically, I tend to think that the mysteriousness of what is called Christian God is delibarately set for purpose. Jesus gave the parable of Ten Talents to demonstrate this. I think what will be demanded from a person coming from Saudi Arabia will be quite different from that of America.

You and I probably concur at certain point, I dont believe in a god who will punish people eternally in the worst punishment ever for minor offenses. Therefore, I dont take the bible literally all the time.

edson,Under the same circumstances he will choose you and he'll leave me out. then there's no point to christianity if all we have to do is be a good person, of which there is no scope or definition. We do just as well going to sunday school and learning economics and game theory. Just think, Me and the monks having an ale, listening to you snap crackle and pop like kindling....

At the end of the day I'll still say that God is just. I don't believe that for a second.

Lee, there is a point to Christianity, even a logical one. God wants a Kingdom where he himself will be a King. But he didn't want to be a dictator but rather wanted to be slave of the people in order to rightly rule over them (a very common principles we use in our democracies), hence the famous "let any one who want to be greatest among you be the least of all".

So the essence of Jesus and the cross was to show that he was serving on behalf of the people. Some people say that Jesus death was a vain death for no one asked God to send Jesus to die for us. That's where christians come into equation, for they have realized that they are sinful and deserve that blood. Even when apparently someone seems to be pious without being a christian, that person is still missing something. Not that piousness does not affect God but that very little act of humbling and realizing what God has done for us has a tremendous effect on the heart of God. In other words, they are happily willing to be partners of Son of God in his mission. You know God has a special love for his Son, and it's all about that.

You have to believe that God is just for not choosing you for one reason. Believe me, at the end of judgement there will be someone who exactly under the same circumstances like you, realized the importance of God and Jesus. He'll get the crown and you'll miss it and that seems just to me.

Since we are looking for tangible elements that Jesus may have left behind...when he went where? How does a tangible body enter a spiritual (non-tangible) Heaven, where presumably the Father and the Spirit reside?...the most critical tangible element would be the body itself. It should still be somewhere in the physical world, even if Jesus's mysterious spirit is in Heaven. He has wedded himself to a body and that body, by definition, must occupy space and exist somewhere in the material world. Right now. It is, after all, eternal. I do have a theory about why it doesn't seem to have been around lately.

edson,there is a point to Christianity, even a logical one. God wants a Kingdom where he himself will be a King. er...the most powerful force in the universe is worried about being the king over a bunch of bags of bones like us.....Logical....riiiiiight.um....Is he going to be more of a king than he is already? If so then he's missing something so he's not perfect.

and now we've come full circle,How do you know this?

From the demonstrably poor information called biblical scripture.

- Where did Paul get his information from?- Who or what corroborates it? - Why do you trust Paul?- Did adam exist?Paul thought so, so much so that he bet the farm on it.

- Who wrote any given scripture besides those known to be authored by Paul?- How do you know?- Where did the author get his information?- What are the authors credentials?- Was the author in a position to know?- If he was not in a position to know, was his source in a position to know?- Is the information first hand, second hand, third hand, etc?- Who or what corroborates it?- How many iterations did it go through before it got recorded?- What are the differences in any pre-existing versions?- How do you verify any of it?- How and where does it fit with established knowledge? Does it contradict any established knowledge? - On what grounds does it over-ride any pre-existing knowledge?

All these questions are open.Therefore, so is the information, Therefore, to make conclusions from it is unsound.So you can't say you really know anything regarding this information.

"the most powerful force in the universe is worried about being the king over a bunch of bags of bones like us....."

I dont follow your reasoning. God is God, for a second he can wipe the earth out of the universe but he chose to serve the people he created. They are illogical to you but they make sense to me, even a lot.

"Where did Paul get his information from?"

Without Paul, still the message is the same. I dont why Paul is much of a problem to you. Why not Peter, James or Matthew?

"Why do you trust Paul?"

For the same reason I trust John.

"Did Adam exist"

It is irrelevant here. Did Jesus exist? Did Julius Ceaser exist?

"How and where does it fit with established knowledge?"

May be you should elaborate more what do those established knowledge are.

"Does it contradict any established knowledge?"

You need to explain those established facts you claim to know, and perhaps we can proceed from there.

I have read these comments with great interest and it is very gratifying to see common decency being practiced and points being debated in a reasonable fashion without degenerating into personal mud slinging. My compliments to the participants

My thoughts are very basic and are prompted by agreement with the original blog post. If the bible is inerrant and supposedly the true word of God, why are there scores of different denominations of christianity, all with different interpretations of scripture? Why does Judaism still exist, if God has supplanted it with the word of his son?Why has God been increasingly distancing himself from humanity in the way he interacts with us?1. Old testament: God talks directly to Abraham and others2. New Testament: God doesn't speak directly but communicates through his son3. Mohammed receives the Quran from an angel, not from God directly or even from his son

If God is trying to get a message across, he's not doing it very effectively

Picking up on a point where it is stated that God wants a kingdom in which he is king, not a dictator; Why? Surely if God wants that to be the case, then he can cause it to be so. So why give man free will and then expect him to fall in line with badly worded and mistake strewn scripture?

In general though, I struggle to find much truth, accuracy or consistency in scripture and find it very difficult to understand why intelligent people place such blind acceptance in such stories

I imagine wisful thinking can be a lot more powerful than I give it credit for

edson,You need to explain those established facts you claim to know, and perhaps we can proceed from there.Do you want me to reproduce the whole of paleontology here. Give me a minute...

seriously,It goes like this,Jesus references adam,paul reference adam,Paul says that sin entered into the world through the disobedience of Adam. Jesus was sent as the perfect sacrifice for the reconciliation of our sins."rom.5:19 For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. "

According to Paulianity, it was necessary for jesus to be a human sacrifice to appease God because Adam disobeyed God.

This is a classic cognitive dissonance rationalization to explain away the surprising way their messiah got the thrashin of his christ.

Since there was no adam, there was no disobedience of God for sin to enter the world. So if sin entered into the world, it did it some other way. Obviously it was built into us.So paul was wrong about Adam, and about how sin got into the world.

So he must have been wrong about the meaning of Jesus death.

Jesus couldn't have been God 1. because he never said he was, it was only interpreted that way using some ambiguous references that Jews use to describe their relationship to God. God lives in them and they show him to the world by their actions, yada, yada,2. Jesus referenced adam. God would know that adam didn't exist and that human origins did not proceed as laid out in scripture.

all other previous references to virgin births are considered to be mythological even by christians, so unless there is some compelling evidence to disconfirm this one as being a myth, it is probably a myth too.

edson,For the same reason I trust John.nice circular answer.so why do you trust John? and which one are you talking about? I presume you can pinpoint the proper "john" that is supposedly the author of revelations, or you shouldn't be so bold or were you referring to something else?

The last time anyone saw the body of Jesus it was rising into the sky. Obviously, this mysterious yet physical body had the power to fly. (Along with other abilities, like walking through walls.) So I am going to ascribe it with a maximum speed, not to exceed the fastest known speed, the speed of light. Not that Jesus could actually fly that fast, but that's the absolute outside limit. A physical body traveling any faster would certainly transform into something non-physical, something even beyond energy. None of this warp speed crap...but I digress...

My theory, like most biblical theories, is based on one verse of the Bible, John 10:16

...other sheep I have...not of this fold (flock); them also I must bring...

Gentiles, right? No. He was talking about the other seed colonies. Life on other planets. He's got to go to these too; preach for three and a half years, perhaps perform the ritual sacrifice. How many other flocks are there? One? Two? Ten? I don't know. The point is that the Universe is vast, even by God's standards. And the nearest inhabited planet is far away. Tens perhaps hundreds of light years away. It probably take Jesus, even traveling at the speed of light, hundreds, perhaps thousands of years to make the journey. So that's my theory of where the body is.

God is yet getting the point across IN SPITE OF flawed human charecter and personality...

You would agree that we are flawed individuals right? Christians readily agree. God is YET able to use those flaws and imperfections including bad choices to allow his truth to be set forth...

Example...every atheist here would like the bible to stop being preached or at the very least for it's God to stop being worshipped right? Even in that the bible is being preached by those of us who believe it. that's being done right in your face and under your nose...there's flaw all around but yet the message gets out that Jesus is Lord and we debate and discuss how, when and why etc...What better system can anyone ask for...even when it's not received it's communicated.

What does that do? Provides no excuses for anyone that hears...I'm not worried about the 70 % that Lee claims don't hear...God will take care and has taken care of all that for all of humanity...I'm worried about my responsibility to the 30% that do hear...

Hi Harvey,Lee you're nuts as always in this fiasco that you think makes sense...as usual you are the sobering voice of reason.

let me ask you...what is the FIRST animal or whatever that you think came about through abiogenesis?as usual you're busily creating your straw men to play with

Where is the time line? Are you superimposing your fundamentalist interpretation of yom on the genesis text? Sounds like it. no, just extrapolating from the text. For example I'm assuming that Adam would have had a life span of under 100yrs. For example, that prohibits a 40,000 year old son from building a town. Not everyone needs someone to tell them what a text means, some of us can make logical inferences from them based on what we already know. I could use that time line, Augustines timeline, or Ussher, or any of the timelines endorsed by the following competing hypotheses. Take your pick

Jesus don't need no space ship. Right, he could do that spiritual thing; travel at the speed of thought, anywhere in the Universe. He probably does do this. Thats how he can be everywhere at the same time. In spirit. The thing is that while his spirit is elsewhere, his body has got to be somewhere; probably in a trance, meditating, communicating telepathically as well as holographically. But that body has got to be somewhere in the material world. The Gospel writers went to great pains to let us know that this resurrected body was part of the physical world.

As to the powers of this super body, you may be right. He might need a space ship. It depends on the extent of his super powers. We know he can fly, and walk through walls. I contend that this body not only can fly but can fly at nearly the speed of light. Think Superman. Superman don't need no stinking space ship.

You said this in response to my asking you for the fossil of the first life form: "as usual you're busily creating your straw men to play with"Not even close to a "strawman" Lee. You hail absence of fossil evidence for Adam as proof that Adam didn't exist. If there is no fossilized evidence for the first being that ever lived then IT didn't exist either(at least under your line of reasoning) So produce the archaeological evidence of first life SINCE you place such a depth into archaeological evidence. So that question remains open and you should answer it based on your IDQ theory.

Secondly, I'll ask once again, where is the time frame for the Genesis account? Pt1- Was it a literal 144 hours of creation or what? If so, you're interpreting the text as a fundy. Pt. 2- What dates in history does Genesis account for, especially before the expulsion from the garden?...Are the years of Adam (which are more than 100) pre or post expullsion years and are those years a literal 364 day year?

Does the text even attempt to address such questions?

The obvious answer is that it DOESN'T. So how can it be flawed when it doesn't reconcile such information in any manner? In conjunction with this, there are a lot of things I'd like to know about how my water and electric rates are calculated because I think I should pay less per month on my bill, but that doesn't make the water and electric company FLAWED because I don't know the answers to my questions right away. Besides I may not even understand it IF I had all the necessary info, but my lack of knowledge doesn't make them flawed...

Lee, your IDQ posts and line of reasoning is weak this post notwithstanding.

Just to give you some perspective, information that takes hits in the categories of Intrinsic and representational is pretty much dead in the water. The user can give it all the value they feel it deserves, but without high marks in those areas, its not warranted.

Does the text even attempt to address such questions? The obvious answer is that it DOESN'T. So how can it be flawed when it doesn't reconcile such information in any manner?I didn't say that either, I said it was of poor quality because it takes hits some of the dimensions listed above.

In some of my other articles liked above I detail some of the intrinsic flaws in scripture, specifically with the phrase with the "son of man" and difference in how it was used in the old and new testament.

In conjunction with this, there are a lot of things I'd like to know about how my water and electric rates are calculated because I think I should pay less per month on my bill, but that doesn't make the water and electric company FLAWED because I don't know the answers to my questions right away.you're right, you have to investigate it. Ask questions about it such as

"Where did this information come from?""Why should I believe this information?"

and go from there. You'll find that the quality of information about your bills is higher than scripture by a long shot.

You are free to not believe the utility companies records, and refuse to pay, but then you have to convince a third party that you are right. That takes evidence and is analogous to where we are right now with scripture.

after 4000 years God has only managed to convince 33% of the world.

On the other hand, microsoft has managed to convince enough people that windows is the best operating system to get up to 95% buy in.

Not many people doubt that the sun would melt any spaceships that tried to land on it. Not because they've ever tried it, but inference from sound and reliable information.

The world was hypothesized to be round around 240 BCE by Eratosthenes. Over time we verified it.

Adam was hypothesized to exist from scripture. Over time it has been disconfirmed, and not by me. Your argument is not we me over Adam.